Meillerie, on the shores of Lake Geneva, France. Photo: Rod Jones / Alamy / Vida Press

A former high-ranking Russian Orthodox bishop has been shown to have owned an apartment on the southern shore of Lake Geneva in France since 2019, according to documents received by Novaya Gazeta Europe from the French authorities.

Metropolitan Hilarion, secular name Grigory Alfeyev, was suspended as metropolitan of Budapest and Hungary in July following an investigation by Novaya Gazeta Europe which alleged misconduct in both his financial and personal affairs.

The latest discovery, a three-storey water-front apartment said to offer stunning views of the lake in the tourist town of Meillerie, is valued at over €500,000, according to an extract from the land registry provided to Novaya Gazeta Europe by the French municipality of Bonneville.

Novaya Gazeta Europe had previously been informed that Alfeyev had an elite “dacha” in France by George Suzuki, his cell-attendant, the Orthodox term for a personal secretary to a high-ranking church official, who accused Alfeyev of sexual misconduct.

Alfeyev’s home in Meillerie, November 2022. Photo: Google Street-View

Suzuki previously told Novaya Europe he had accompanied Hilarion to a “lavish mansion” the bishop owned on the French side of Lake Geneva, where Suzuki said the first instance of alleged sexual misconduct took place. Alfeyev denied all of Suzuki’s allegations and said that Suzuki had tried to blackmail him before the article was published.

Metropolitan Hilarion had headed the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department of External Church Relations since 2009 and was touted as a possible successor to Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, until he was suddenly removed from the post in 2022 and appointed head of one of the smallest dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church in Hungary.

The Novaya Europe investigation into Alfeyev’s life showed that he received a Hungarian passport within months of living in the country, acquired a luxurious palace near Budapest and spent all his free time on entertainment.

Alfeyev told Novaya Europe that he had been able to purchase expensive property and afford a less than monastic lifestyle from “royalties” he received for his books and films.

Suzuki also covertly recorded Alfeyev telling Suzuki he wanted to “lay down in bed” with him. In another recording, Alfeyev appears to be threatening Suzuki with excommunication for expressing his discomfort with the metropolitan’s behaviour.

RAPSI, a state-run Russian news agency which specialises in legal matters, said earlier this month that its forensic analysis of the recordings showed “signs of transcoding and editing”. It said nothing, however, about how the bishop had accumulated so much luxury real estate.